NHL: Flyers find their groove, top Hurricanes, 5-3

PHILADELPHIA - Shrugging off the pressure as if it weren’t there Saturday night, the Flyers remembered how to click on the power play and thereby turned the lights out on the Carolina Hurricanes, winning 5-3 to snap a three-game losing streak and thereby avoid what would have been the club’s worst record after a season-opening nine-game span.

Entering the game having scored on just 5 of their 40 power play chances, the Flyers essentially started the game by improving on that mark, then ran with it.

Kurtis Foster showed why general manager Paul Holmgren was keen on signing him as a free agent, drilling a slapshot home for a power play goal 5:08 in, thereby setting the tone of the evening. Danny Briere and Claude Giroux would follow suit, as the Flyers went 3-for-3 on the power play through the first two periods.

While the absences of Wayne Simmonds (concussion) and Scott Hartnell (foot fracture) loom large, especially on the power play, rookie call-up Tye McGinn played big while fronting the Hurricanes’ crease. He also joined Briere and Giroux in creating chaos for the Hurricanes’ checking lines.

Briere, Giroux, Matt Read and Kimmo Timonen all had two points. And while the Flyers’ defensive zone play was frequently sloppy and loose, Ilya Bryzgalov had another strong outing to preserve the victory.

He had to be sharp, since Carolina managed 42 shots on goal against the weary if desperate Flyers (3-6). They had never started a season by losing seven of their first nine games, and Giroux and Briere weren’t about to let that happen now.

That said, there probably wasn’t a better forward on the ice all night than Read. He began work on the Flyers’ first power play, after Giroux and Briere had come up empty there against the Canes’ penalty killers.

Read deftly faked a shot and fired a pass to the top of the circle to Foster, who showed what had been promised - an impressive right-hand shot that Canes goalie Dan Ellis merely waved at, giving the Flyers a 1-0 lead.

Former Flyers Joni Pitkanen soon tied it, left alone and cashing in on a crisp pass by Eric Staal for 1-1.

But the Flyers then kicked into a 3-on-2 break engineered by Jakub Voracek, whose smart shot was kicked back into the slot by Ellis, and Braydon Coburn was there to drive it into the net for a 2-1 lead at 14:27 of the first. Just 58 seconds later, Giroux was on-target with a 90-degree power play try that Ellis blocked off. But Briere was there for the rebound and a 3-1 lead.

The Hurricanes (3-4) took all of 33 seconds to make up for that goal. A brutal giveaway by Luke Schenn gave Eric Staal the puck right in front of Bryzgalov, and he shoveled it past him to cut the lead to a goal.

Just 52 seconds into the second, however, Carolina’s Justin Faulk fell asleep behind his net. Read swiped the puck off him there and got it to Mike Knuble, who cut a semi-circle into the slot and ripped the puck home for his first Flyers goal since his first tenure here and a 4-2 lead.

That sent the yanked Ellis to the bench in favor of usual starter Cam Ward. But he couldn’t prevent Giroux from perfectly placing a wrist shot into a far corner for a power play goal at 12:43 and a 5-2 Flyers lead.

Carolina wouldn’t go away, however, as Patrick Dwyer scored at 3:29 of the third, a hurtful goal coming with just four seconds left on a Canes power play, to cut the Flyers lead to two.

Then, midway through the period, Coburn and Max Talbot took consecutive penalties.

Despite the Flyers having just as many penalty killing woes (ranked 26th entering the game) as power play problems (24th), Bryzgalov and his team killed off both Canes advantages and cruised the rest of the way.